My best friend from college spent time in Uganda for her medical residency in 2017, so we took it as a perfect opportunity to meet up in Tanzania for a 10-day safari!

Since we decided to go in April during rainy, off-season, we weren’t sure what to expect. Turns out, the parks were much less crowded, so we were able to get up close and personal with many of the animals without jockeying for car space. It also only rained at night so our days weren’t spoiled by rainy conditions. We did, however, get stuck in the mud once and had to have several other guides come pull our car out!

We used an incredible Travel Company, Kazinga Tours, that took care of all of our accommodations, food, and transportation for the entire trip. I would highly recommend booking your safari with an agency that can take care of all the logistics from start to finish. Just figuring out the park permits alone would have been difficult, not to mention the guides are experts at spotting animals and communicating with one another in the park when a group of animals have been spotted. It was well worth the investment to have a personal guide our entire trip!

Here is a look at our 10-day itinerary Tanzania:

The Best of Northern Tanzania

Day 1

We arrived at night at Kilimanjaro International Airport and were picked up by our guide. He drove us to Arusha Town, which is about 45 minutes away to stay overnight.

Day 2

After some shopping in Arusha we drove to Tarangire National Park, which stretches south east of Lake Manyara around the Tarangire River. We saw our first zebras, elephants, and many giraffes that first day out.

Tarangire National Park is most spectacular in the dry season from June to November, when several thousands of animals migrate to the last remaining pools. Since we went during off season, we weren’t sure what animals we would get to see, but were pleasantly surprised that we saw so many!

Day 3

We drove through the Ngorongoro Highlands towards the Ngorongoro Conservation area, stopping for a spectacular Crater view, on the way to the plains of the Serengeti.

We had the afternoon in the Serengeti, which was plenty of time to see gazelles and elephant packs.

Day 4

We had our first full day game drive in central Serengeti. The Serengeti is a massive wilderness of 14500 square km, famous for the big migration and chances of seeing the big 5 and other game.

Seronera specifically has a lot of water and supports large numbers of animals throughout the year, so we were able to see many lions, wildebeests, even more gazelles, elephant packs, and bathing hippos.

We were even so lucky as to find a sleeping leopard in a tree!

Day 5

We woke up early on this morning for a game drive in the Seronera area searching for active animals in kopjes, which are small hills in an otherwise flat area. We saw lots of zebras and some lazy lions lounging on rocks.

In the late afternoon we left central Serengeti to drive to the Southern Serengeti (Ndutu Area).

Day 6

Our guide proved to be an expert when he found a cheetah momma in the morning while starting out on our game drive around the Ndutu area. She was stunning and powerful, and totally unphased by her little cubs running all around her.

We also witnessed lions lounging in the sun after eating (I could have gone without seeing a lion chomping on a carcass but that’s life), and got super freaked out when a lioness came a little too close to our open car window.

Day 7

We said our goodbyes to the vast plains of the Serengeti, and headed to the Ngorongoro Crater. On the way, we stopped at a Maasai Boma, a local tribe’s community made up of huts. We weren’t sure how we felt about paying money to see a local tribe’s village initially, but thought it would be a relevant cultural experience. In the end, I had a very different experience than my best friend (they assign you to a community member to take you around, so we were not together for the visit), and am unsure of if I would recommend this same detour to others.

Day 8

Driving into Ngorongoro Crater in the early morning of Day 8 was one of the most breathtaking experiences I have ever had.

The Ngorongoro Crater features one of the highest concentrations of game in Africa, a true self-contained world teeming with animals. We were fortunate enough that day to find a black rhino, which are extremely rare, as well as a pack of over 15 lions, and a gorgeous field of yellow flowers that elephants and zebras were using as their gathering spot.

Day 9

We drove to Lake Manyara National Park, Tanzania’s most dramatically located wildlife area, consisting of a shallow but huge soda lake, at the foot of the Great Rift Valley’s western escarpment. The park is scattered with acacia trees and home to the world famous tree climbing lions. While we didn’t find any climbing lions on our trip, we did meet a bunch of monkeys.

That afternoon we drove back to Arusha and spent the night before flying out the next morning from Kilimanjaro Airport onto Zanzibar!

ACCOMMODATIONS

Day 1: Mount Meru Hotel
Day 2: Maramboi Tented Camp
Day 3/4: Serengeti Sopa Lodge
Day 5/6: Masek Tented Camp
Day 7: Ngorongoro Serena Safari Lodge
Day 8: Lake Manyara Serena Safari Lodge
Day 9: Mount Meru Hotel

I felt like 10 days was the perfect amount of time for our safari because we were able to see a huge number of animals and didn’t feel rushed during any game drives. Every day we found something new, and by the end of it, we were able to put our cameras down and just enjoy observing the wildlife. Our guide, Ukadi, was a ton of fun, and since it was just the 3 of us together in our car, we were really able to bond. At the end of the trip, Ukadi even took us to his home to meet his wife and daughter, which was a highlight for us. Getting to spend time with a local and learn about his culture made the overall experience that much more enriching.